Some of the prayer flags were frozen into the ice below the waterfall.

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The river we were walking along was also mainly frozen.

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The view from a rise at the side valley leading to Rumbak. We are looking down the main valley. There’s another village some distance off in the end valley to the right but we didn’t visit there.

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Tea is on the way. We received wonderful service from our support team, mainly villagers from Rumbak.

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Here is Rumbak in the distance, a man and a horse walking in. There are more houses than this but they are spread out and not all visible at the same time from the trail in. There is also a small stupa on the hill behind the houses (click on the image to see this better). There are Buddhist monuments on many small peaks.

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On the stupas in front of these houses are many carved stones. Traditionally during the long dark hours of winter, women weave cloth and make clothes while men carve stones.

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Some of these houses, such as this one, offer home stays (but we were camping).

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A stupa and some ruins at the back of the village. Note the zigzag walking trail on the mountain behind the stupa.
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Ruins of an old house, perched on the edge of a cliff that appears to have eroded away, from a time when houses were further up the valley.

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People have lived in Rumbak for a long time.

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Looking to the end of the valley.

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Looking down on the village as we walk back from the stupa shown above.

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We were offered tea in the village’s ceremonial hall. The main purpose of this room is for events that all the village gathers for such as marriages and births. This is the kitchen part of the room, with a stove and many brass pots, different ones for specific social events.

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A last view of the mountains at the end of the valley, past the stupa we visited.

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Looking up-river on the trail back to camp. The stupa is decorated with a flag and the skulls of blue sheep or bharal.

We are in the cars and heading towards Hemis National Park, where we are to camp for eight days.

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On the way we pass a bridge festooned with prayer flags and banners.

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We stop at a cairn near the side of the road festooned with prayer flags and white silk.

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Our drivers are conducting a ceremony to bless our trip with good fortune.

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Down below in the Indus River, a bank of ice has formed around a gravel bar.

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Even before getting into the National Park, the view is wild and barren.

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… and the mountains are majestic.

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I stopped to take a picture of this footbridge which I surmise has seen better days…

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… when some of the ponies came wandering down the road.

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These are to take our bags from the cars to our camp.

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It was not a long walk to the camp and here is the yak Tashi hanging around near the kitchen.

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All the catering and organising is done by villagers from the nearby village Rumbak. We are beside a small river and here a hole has been made in the ice for our water supply.

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A dramatic rock headland towers over the camp.

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After lunch, we head off to look for snow leopards and encountered some of the ponies along the way.

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We climb up to a ridge and some of our guides search for snow leopards in the mountain sides with spotting scopes. This is a view from there showing a large stone pen in the valley below.

We didn’t see any snow leopards though earlier we passed a spot where a snow leopard had rubbed against a rock, marked the spot and left an indistinct paw print. I didn’t think to take an image though it would have been fairly prosaic.

Driving along a very damp cold backcountry road, I came across a group of people and horses beside the road and stopped to see what was going on. It was autumn, winter was approaching and they had found a very late season lamb that would not survive left to its own devices.

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I was driving from Kerlingarfjöll south-west along the F35 or Kjölur route and we are near the Hvítá Bridge. Later I would take a sharp left turn along the 32, F26 and F208 for my nighttime destination of Landmannalaugar. The green area around Landmannalaugar is the Fjallabak Nature Reserve.

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Holding on to the lamb was one thing; they also needed to hang on to the ewe so it did not run off and leave the lamb separated from its mother.

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So the horses waited patiently while this was happening.

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One of the people asked me if I could transport the ewe and lamb in the back of my vehicle to a nearby barn and I was happy to agree. In any case, the lower interior was aluminium and easy to clean.

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So here, the ewe and lamb are unloaded from the camper while a sheepdog carefully watches on to ensure that nothing is amiss.

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Heading into the barn.

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… where there were a number of very charming Icelandic horses.

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A little later, I watched the sheep being mustered to more suitable pastures, perhaps their winter pastures. This is the bridge over the glacial river Hvítá. Not far away on the left is Hvítárvatn (or White Lake), a lake fed by the glaciers Suðurjökull and Norðurjökull (So, I presume, North and South Glaciers) of the icecap Langjökull.

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I continued on my way. The rain grew heavier so I did not stop to take many photographs. This image and the next one are views of the Hvíta River to the south and west of the road, taken twenty and thirty minutes respectively further along the F35.

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This image is probably a glimpse of the River Tungnaá. It and the last two are along the F208 on the way in to Landmannalaugar.

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Not much scope for agriculture here.

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This last image is Frostastaðavatn (or Frosty Lake), just before Landmannalaugar.